The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy)

by Krista Gossett

  “Is it possible to talk to you without you being a total jerk?” Rienna shot back, not angrily but with exasperation. “I didn’t kill you; give me some credit.”

  Melchior laughed, but weakly. He really was overdoing it. But time was running short, the elder was soon to go and the army was still not completely ready. The dark shadows under his eyes softened her bite.

  “Verity and Finn are still gone. When Dinsch and Krose came back, I started to think that the rest of you might not be coming back at all,” Melchior admitted, too weary to keep up his game. “Thought maybe you were all tired of my shit and shot off to finish what you started.”

  Rienna shot him a look and held his eyes to see that he was sincere. She looked away again and concentrated on finding the room he stayed in.

  “If they don’t return today, we might have to send out a search party. Ashe told me they headed south, probably for that city on the Massif,” Rienna offered and Melchior’s face darkened.

  “Damn it, I wish you idiots had at least shared your plans before you left. You seem to forget how much I know about this continent and Finn and Verity just walked into a sadistic dollhouse. You also forget that the barrier is coming down any day now and once it does, Myceum is very quickly going to find out we’re retaliating. I’ve already had reports that they’ve been cleaning up Xanias to put up a base on Vieres and that Ersenais and Calaris have banded with some of the remaining northern tribes to try to crush that plan. Hoshril was wiped out but Vereshod is gathering forces as well.”

  Rienna’s interest perked up at that.

  “You’re getting more intel? Did you… hear anything about how Merschenez is doing?” Rienna asked meekly.

  Melchior’s tight, stressed face relaxed as he patted Rienna’s hand. He had a soft spot for that place too, whether she believed it or not and he knew what she wanted to hear, even if it meant he had to tread lightly. It was always going to be taboo between them since it was the place she saw him kill her brand new husband and her father.

  “The Princess was unharmed but it took a while to get things organized. I believe she was happy to hear you survived as well and wants to see you when you make it back up there again,” Melchior told her. Rienna was taken aback by how quickly he could change emotions sometimes.

  Rienna turned Melchior into his quarters and placed her hands on her hips authoritatively.

  “Get those clothes off. I’ll call someone to take them for cleaning,” Rienna ordered.

  “I knew you wanted to see me naked.” Melchior smirked and started to undress in front of her, letting his shirt pool at his feet and started undoing his pants, looking directly at her. She barely noticed the dark auburn hair at his groin before jerking her head away shyly.

  “Gods, Melchior, you couldn’t warn me you didn’t have on underclothes?” she hissed. He laughed and stepped out of the clothes. She heard him go to the basin and start wiping the blood away, but didn’t dare look. She was indecisive on whether or not she should just leave, but she saw him wobble from the corner of her vision and lunged forward to steady him, pushing him back towards his bed so he could collapse onto it. She covered him quickly and put her hand on his head. It felt hot and clammy and his eyes hung heavy with exhaustion. Still, that damn smirk sat on his face.

  She sat on the edge and her eyes shot to the mechanical hand he usually had covered. For the first time, she got a good look at it and it was certainly modern wonder. He saw her trying not to stare but failing. He flexed it so she could see how it moved like a real hand, holding it in front of her face and waving it before dropping it onto his stomach. She could even see the scorch mark where Nuriel had severed Chevalle’s control. He had a strange combination of loathing and appreciation on his face as he looked at it.

  “It reads the subtle movements in my arm muscles and brain signals to move accordingly. There was a latex covering for it, flesh colored and pretty realistic but it wasn’t quite convincing so I opted for the plasticine see-through base. It feels like real skin, warm to the touch but you can see everything moving inside like clockwork. Even when I hate it, I’m pretty amazed with the technology,” Melchior admitted, showing her how it worked and holding his hand out again so she could touch it.

  “But you can’t exactly feel it being touched though, can you?” Rienna asked, touching it without hesitation anyway.

  Melchior shook his head and smiled.

  “Chevalle thought nerve sensors would ruin its usefulness. Pain is a weakness and it comes hand in hand with sensory perception, just another thing that could cause hesitation or distraction. It took some time to learn how to pick up things you can’t feel but I got used to it. When you lose a limb, you get a phantom phenomenon where you instinctively reach for things or feel it itch. You have to use that passive instinct to train yourself. You can hold it, Rienna, it’s not going to malfunction and crush you or anything.”

  Rienna narrowed her eyes at his amused grin but grabbed it more firmly. She was amazed to see that he was right about how it felt and moved; it did not feel like machine but like flesh and bone. She wouldn’t be able to tell it from a real hand easily just by touch. Still, she was mesmerized by all the mechanical joints and gears and lubrication and parts inside of it that whirred silently and operated as seamlessly as the real thing. It was no delicate machine either; she could easily pinch the pseudo-flesh he had called “plasticine” and it wouldn’t disturb the mechanics inside of it. Her hand traced down the machine to the place where it joined his flesh and her eyes shot up to his but still tickled his skin. His eyes softened and his smile was simple.

  “What was lost?” Rienna asked timidly and he knew what she meant. Ashe had tattoos right up to the knuckles and it was clear the tattoos were severed on his own arm.

  “It doesn’t matter. Tradition never meant much to me. I never would have made it this far if it had,” Melchior told her and she nodded, knowing when to let something go.

  She shook her head to refocus and let go of his hand, shooting him a stern look.

  “No more of this, Melchior, you need rest. Just relax. The spell will make you sleep, but you will be able to wake up normally. You will simply go back to sleep shortly unless you pinch yourself to stay awake— “

  “Awwww, that’s cute,” Melchior teased, then he pouted. “I said no sleep magic!”

  “I’m glad I can constantly amuse you,” Rienna said and did not hesitate to use the magic. Within moments, Melchior was asleep. Rienna watched him for a moment, her hand running along the tattoos on his arm, to the place where it abruptly stopped and his crafted hand began. She absently wondered again what part of his story was lost when the hand went with it.

  “You seem to have a thing for tattoos, Miss Rienna,” came Ashe’s amused voice from the doorway. Rienna shot him an annoyed look but kept her hand where it was. All the more annoyed for the ‘Miss’ remark. The idea of him and Krose being buddies just didn’t sit well.

  “You two sure know how to amuse yourselves at my expense. And not really, just yours and his, for obvious reasons. What I wouldn’t give to know what they really meant,” Rienna shot back, but then turned her attention back to Melchior. She sat silent for a short while as Ashe held his spot leaning on the doorjamb. When Rienna spoke, she still looked at Melchior’s sleeping face.

  “I still can’t quite grasp how to feel. Learning that Belias took his hand because of some dumb argument about me. How his simple little mission of finding the one that gave him the new hand went so wrong. I thought he was dead and then when I saw him again, I had wished it had been true. Underneath all of that mess, there is a boy who stole my first kiss,” Rienna admitted her doubts, her face blank from her own conflicted thoughts. “Don’t read too much into that. I have no delusions about him being that boy any longer. More than once, I’ve realized he is a stranger to me now.”

  Rienna heard Ashe approaching. He pulled a chair away from the wall and straddled it, leaning on the back to face her.

&n
bsp; “No one expects you to feel a certain way about anything, Rienna,” Ashe assured her kindly. She seemed to need being reminded of that repeatedly, but he didn’t mind having to do so.

  Rienna held Melchior’s mechanical hand still and took Ashe’s in her other where it hung over the chair. His fingers squeezed hers reassuringly. Her and Ashe just watched each other for a moment without speaking, a sort of understanding seeming to hold them in companionable silence.

  “Freesia didn’t remember her past either; I never got to ask her what that really meant to her,” Rienna finally admitted. The sting of her passing did not lessen and she constantly wondered about Freesia’s past. It was the one thing that seemed to linger unresolved in her heart.

  Ashe smiled but his eyes looked haunted.

  “I… I remembered my past, Rienna; days ago when I had asked you to come with me to Calderon. It was what had made me want to go. I didn’t want to dwell on it,” Ashe admitted.

  Rienna’s eyes widened but she did not press him. She didn’t have to. He told her anyway.

  The Suleika settlement was a part of the north but about as far south as you could go and still be considered a northern tribe. You could see the snows in the distance but it was warm enough in the settlement to enjoy warm weather and very little clothing. The women covered their breasts, although in the earlier days of the tribe, it wasn’t unusual for the women to wear only loin coverings as the men did. Hunters would often wear pants, if only for hunting when an errant tusk would sooner lay open a leather garment than a hunter’s leg. A child’s first tattoo would be given at the age of 5: the Suleika Mark. Over the years, tattoos would be redone as the child grew but generations had taught the tattooists how to keep them intact on growing flesh. For boys, the trial was much harder, for the language and histories of the Suleika would be assigned to adorn their bodies soon after. Ashe’s father was chief so his script would be even more extensive.

  Despite the pain of a tattoo, Ashe never cried when it came time to receive his next. His eyes would water sometimes when it came time but he would not cry out and he would not let the tears fall. This always made his father so proud.

  Ashe’s mother was a beautiful pale woman with the same blonde hair and blue eyes she had given to her son. Most of the tribe was dark—dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, but the chief had fallen for a woman of the far north and she had given her hair and eyes to the child, who still had his father’s bronzed skin. He was a beautiful boy, Ashe was, and this disturbed his father. Melchior had also had the same pretty features, but Melchior was built more masculine. He hoped his son would grow stronger as his brother was.

  Ashe could not remember much of the way things worked still because in the end, he had still been a boy of 7 when the barbarians of the east had come in the evening. Ashe had been woken from his tent, to the smell of fire and blood and his mother’s pretty face was drawn in horror as she told him to run for the forest.

  Ashe had done as his mother had told him to do, covered in his own fear-induced urine but from where he hid he saw the hairy men mount his mother before taking her head and they had made his father watch before taking his head as well. Ashe had hidden there all night and the morning was coming upon him when he felt a hand upon his shoulder and turned to see the man who had killed his parents holding the same ax with their dried flaking blood upon it. Ashe had relieved his bowels again, thinking his blood would be upon it next, but the man had grabbed his arm and carried him off to where they had set up their camp.

  The giant of a man had taken him into a tent and he sat numbly as the man stroked his arms and cleaned him off and dressed him in a gown, talking to him softly. Ashe sat there as the man fussed over him and it had been so sudden when the man had flipped him over and took him from behind. Ashe had never screamed when it was time for the tattoos to be done, but this pain had split him in two and the scream tore through him unrestricted. After a few minutes, he went numb and lay there boneless, not even sobbing anymore. But the tears that streaked his face sideways as his face was repeatedly pressed into the rough mattress flowed like tiny rivers.

  The man and his warriors had stayed there only for a few days but the warm weather and winds carried the stink of the unburied, unburned bodies over their camp and they moved again. For months they had traveled and stopped and camped repeatedly. The man did not take him every night, usually he was spared from the man’s touches for two weeks even, but when it came again, he could feel something harden in his soul that never quite softened again. Ashe began to know it as hatred. The man did not have a normal name but he heard them all called him the Reaper. Ashe thought that word had one too many ‘e’s in the beginning.

  For two years he had endured, but hate and hardness grew in him. He did not let fear and disgust cripple him; the man seemed to want him to be like a girl, so Ashe took every opportunity to build his strength so he would be less appealing, but there was only so much muscle a boy could build. He knew he was risking his life by doing so since he had already overheard the Reaper saying that the boy would meet his ancestors once he was done with him. He would rather lose his head than give in to despair and bide his time until execution.

  The opportunity for his escape had come when he was nine and the great lout had stumbled in drunk and rough and had his rut with Ashe and fell right into a drunken sleep. He was still in armor and Ashe had held his breath, slipping out from underneath the man and frantically but carefully searching him for weapons. He had almost let despair grip him when Ashe realized the Reaper had at least been careful to remove those. However, the man still wore his helmet…

  The helmet was a rough iron piece, well made and decorative but blunt. It was a heavy thing for a nine-year-old boy and he knew it was a risk, but Ashe had decided it was do-or-die (or possibly do-and-still-die) time and he wasn’t turning back. He had started to remove the helmet and the Reaper had stirred, stopping Ashe’s heart for a frantic moment as the brute mumbled then commenced to snore wetly again. He waited more long agonizing seconds until he was sure the rhythm was one of deep sleep; drunk sleep was hard to measure since it was unsteady and restless at times. When he gathered his courage again, he was able to pull the rest of the helmet off, scrambling in terror again as he almost dropped it on the dirt floor. The naked boy froze for a moment even after he caught it, letting his pent-up breath out as quietly as he could and carefully set the helmet down. Tiptoeing, he dragged a rickety footstool over to the side of the bed and did his best to balance as he climbed it holding the heavy helmet, with both hands firmly, knowing clumsiness at this point would not be recoverable. For a few moments after he gathered his balance on the top, he stared down with open hate at the man who used him so badly over the last two years. Fury enflamed his eyes as he raised the helmet above his head, angling the sharpest part to land true, and jumped, throwing the whole of his body weight into the head of the giant, hairy bastard.

  The blow made a sickening crack and blood had gushed from the dent but the Reaper was not dead yet. Ashe had panicked as the man started to groan so he straddled the man’s back and brought that helmet down repeatedly, in a series of sickening cracks, great globs of blood and skull and brain matter flying from the misshapen helmet. The fury washing over Ashe had tempted him to wail in a great battle cry as he had heard his father do when he was a babe, but he silently bludgeoned the head of the Reaper until it was a shapeless black stain on the stinking mattress.

  Ashe knew he did not have time to celebrate—he was a smart boy and revenge did not free him so easily. There were many other barbarians who would be happy to take him next and it was quite possible the whole lot of them would do so at once. If he survived, he could face castration, torture, any number of things that would make the Reaper seem gentle by comparison. He calmly and quietly used the water basin to wash away the blood and gore and discovered the only clothes he had were his gowns but he put them on anyway. Since he had not been permitted to cut his hair, his hair was long and straight a
nd he did look like a girl anyways so it would suffice. He hoped that wherever he was headed, there would be men who honored women, as his tribe had, more than another overabundance of child rapists.

  Ashe knew that there were tents around this one so there wasn’t exactly a safe exit to freedom, but Ashe had also been very careful in his plans and knew how to avoid the sentries, stay low in the high grass without making it tremble too much and have a fair chance at getting out unseen. His eyes were accustomed to the dark so he used all of his wits to head for the trees and mountains of the south. Twice he had come close to alerting the men that patrolled but in the end he had gotten out of sight of the camp. He had been careful to always get a lot of sleep and luckily, that day he had rested well. He did not slow once he was out of sight; Ashe had run west through the night along the southern range and then south towards Ersenais once he broke free of the mountains. When he decided to rest, he would make sure he left no tracks and would often sleep under fallen trunks or rock ledges before running again.

  The scared boy did not end up making it to Ersenais— the Reaper’s men had caught up to him and the boy used all of his strength to try to fight the men off with a sharpened stick and the resolve to kill them all or die. He was not going back with them alive.

  Luck had favored him that day and a Suleika man had seen him fighting for his life and killed the men that attacked Ashe. Ashe had stood in awe of the style of fighting his tribesman was using and had only been able to stand and watch. The man had introduced himself as Malek and told him there were more children of the tribe that had found their way to this place and he was training them how to fight. He didn’t know Malek but he had the familiar mark and was relieved at finding any respite from his lot so far.